


Hold On, Be Strong

by Kerjen



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), K9 and Company, Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s02e05 The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith, Episode: s04e05 Death of the Doctor, Episode: s04e06 Death of the Doctor Part II, Episode: s06e13 The Wedding of River Song, F/M, Gen, In Character, Post Episode: s06e13 The Wedding of River Song, Season/Series 06 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:31:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2749541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerjen/pseuds/Kerjen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman with a mane of curls says she knows the Doctor and has a message for Sarah Jane: prepare yourself for devastating news. The Doctor is dead and was killed by a group called the Silence through their assassin, Melody Pond. How does Sarah Jane and other companions deal with the news? Jack swears revenge on Melody Pond and the Silence has returned for their property in a way no one expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Message From Me

**Author's Note:**

> Time Period:
> 
> Since the Doctor was “killed” on 22 April 2011, here is where everyone is situated in time.
> 
> Sarah Jane and everyone else from SJA are post-Death of the Doctor. So is Jo (Grant) Jones.
> 
> All the 2012 locations and biographical info for the Classic Who companions comes from the end of SJA: Death of the Doctor Part II as well as their lives in the canon from Classic Who.
> 
> Jack Harkness is after Children of Earth (which happened in 2009) and a few months before Miracle Day (September 2011). That means all of Torchwood was destroyed two years ago. Only Jack and Gwen are alive; Ianto and the rest are sadly dead. Jack and Gwen, however, are not reunited to work together until September.
> 
> Amy & Rory are shortly after TWORS when River has told them the Doctor is alive. River is shortly after First Night.
> 
> Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations owned by the BBC. Not for sale, no copyright infringement intended.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

“Miss Smith.”

Sarah Jane turned at her name and saw someone behind her on the path. It had to be this woman, with a truly spectacular head of curly hair that complimented her tanned skin, who had spoken. Gunnersbury Park was quiet and no one else was around.

“Can I help you?” she answered.

The woman smiled and took a few steps closer. “I thought I recognized you. I’ve read all your work. Well, at least what I believe is all your work.”

She was dressed casually much like Sarah Jane herself: trousers, boots, loose blouse although a deep sapphire unlike Sarah Jane’s white with pinstripe vest. She had learned from being a journalist how to read a lot about a person. Something told her that this woman who appeared to be a little younger than herself might actually be younger still. The bearing and body movement held elements of youth.

Sarah Jane smiled back. “I thought I might do a piece on the Park renovations. Can’t miss something in my own town.”

“I thought it might be the extraterrestrial life readings coming from Princess Amelia’s bathhouse.” The barest delight touched on Princess Amelia’s name, but that wasn’t what raised a warning flag. Sarah Jane had played this game of feigned ignorance plenty of times. She knew she gave nothing away.

“Extraterrestrial? You can’t be serious.”

“You know I am,” came the even answer. The shrug came more from the woman’s voice than anything she did with her body. “It’s only a group of Flibanathi.”

“Flibanathi?” The sarcasm was feigned, but her ignorance wasn’t. She really hadn’t ever met them before.

“I ran into them in my first university years. A microscopic life form from the outer moon of K'Zag. They're totally benign. This group is just out for a little universe sightseeing. Not everyone can steal a blue box to get about.”

The woman’s expression didn’t change from the casual encounter in a park she had used from the beginning. She had obviously played this game too. Sarah Jane shifted her purse strap on her shoulder, covering her hand moving to open it quickly if she needed to get at her sonic lipstick. At least, she hoped the other woman didn’t notice.

“Sorry, am I supposed to know what that means?”

They stood close enough that she could see those eyes were green or a blue green. They crinkled in the corners as they warmed. “You first met him as Doctor John Smith at UNIT when scientists were being stolen and sent back in time. You believed he was behind it all and aided Sir Edward Irongron in the plot. He became one of only three people you let call you Sarah instead of Sarah Jane. The second was Professor Kettlewell’s poor K One when you faced the SRS under the guise of the Think Tank. The third is your aunt's ward Brandon.”

Sarah Jane wondered if an enemy could have pulled those details from the Doctor’s head. “Alright, that was impressive except for one thing. His memory is so full of holes, I can’t believe he supposedly told you all of it.”

The other woman suddenly bared teeth behind tight lips and her eyes held fire. Sarah Jane nearly took a step back. Something in that stance reminded her of the Doctor’s stories about warrior Leela. She decided against that step, because she realized the anger was aimed at something over her shoulder.

“You do anything to her and you’ll bring his younger version here,” the woman bit out. “I’m only preparing her for what’s waiting, nothing else, but he’ll start a war if you harm her, and what would happen to your fixed point?”

Anyone would turn after hearing that and Sarah Jane found a nightmare behind her. The painting _Scream_ didn’t equal those eyes staring out of the body towering over her with those long hands and arms reaching for her. Now she took that step back and spun to ask who were they, but face to face again with the other woman, she had no idea what it was she was going to ask.

“Sorry. You were saying he probably didn’t tell me all those details.” The fierce expression and the stance to go with it were gone. Instead, the blonde curls bobbed as the head underneath them wagged back and forth while the woman gave a small grin. “True. He told me what he could. The Tardis filled in the rest.”

She said his name for the first time. “You know the Doctor?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the real reason you’re here?”

The other woman moved closer. The grin was gone and the eyes stayed locked on hers. “I have a message.”

Sarah Jane’s heart lifted and her fair skin coloured. “From the Doctor?”

“From me. The universe is about to shiver, Sarah Jane.” The words tugged at her memory but it wouldn’t come back. “When it does, I hope you can remember the times you recently shared with Jo Grant to get you through this.”

Jo Grant?

“Look, why all this secrecy?” Sarah Jane snapped. “There’s no one here. Just tell me what you mean.”

“Not everyone shows up scans or in memory.”

“Does this have anything to do with that beacon from a short while ago? It said it came from a bubble universe and the Doctor needed help. I answered it, but never heard back and now there’s stories everywhere about the person who sent it.”

The reply was sad and far away. “I’m sure there is.” She pulled back and her body gave off a barely noticeable droop. “If you don’t remember what you and Jo shared, then I’m sure you’ll find a way to track me down.”

“Will I? Even though I don’t know your name?”

“Yes. You’ll be too angry to let me go, and, sadly, discovering my name won't be a problem very soon.”

Her visitor took a true step back this time and slid her sleeve up her arm revealing a vortex manipulator. Sarah Jane’s “Wait!” came too late and blended in with the electric sizzle of time induced lightning and smoke.

She stood and stared at the spot while she worked on, _What was_ _that all about?_ It went round and round in her brain during the short drive home, but the sight of an armed squad of UNIT forces waiting at her house pushed everything else out. Small and unintimidated K9 guarded her drive and she could hear his imperious voice refusing to allow the soldiers on her property.

She jumped out of the car. “What is this!”

The squad’s leader, a tall man with dark hair and military bearing, stepped forward. “If I could have a word in private, Miss Smith?”

“Negative, Mistress!” K9 exclaimed. “UNIT forces have refused to comply with your instructions!”

“He’s right,” Sarah Jane said and got a brief moment of satisfaction from the man’s wide eyes at being put down by a robot dog.

“I'm sorry, Miss Smith, but I must inform you that your friend, the Doctor, is dead. A group calling itself The Silence and Academy of the Question is taking credit for his murder. It was done by their assassin Melody Pond on the 22nd of April around 1700 hours in Utah, America. A place called Silencio Lake on the Plain of Sighs. ”

She looked around her, everywhere but at them. Prepare her, the woman said. This didn’t prepare her at all. She had gone through this already and even though the Doctor had ended up alive, the pain from it still scarred her and Jo.

Jo Grant Jones.

_I think the whole universe might just shiver._  The Doctor had said that in his old man’s voice, about what it would be like if he died, before startling her with a laugh. She and Jo swore they would feel it if he was gone. But they hadn’t felt it, so they believed...

The Doctor was alive.

“Are you sure?” she asked the UNIT leader. Her voice quivered. Good because if the Doctor wasn’t dead, she should sound like he was.

“Quite sure. Melody Pond confirmed it on behalf of her leadership. She had proof and eyewitnesses were brought to her trial.”

“Eyewitnesses?” No. No, please no, maybe he was dead after all.

“The Doctor’s friends, an Amy Pond and her husband Rory Williams. They’re somehow related to the assassin. She pled guilty at her trial and has been sentenced with 12,000 consecutive life sentences in a maximum security prison.”

Sarah Jane’s mind reeled. What to believe? They had proved the Doctor was dead.

No, Melody Pond _claimed_ he was dead and had the Doctor’s only married companions confirm it. If this was a ruse, anyone who traveled with the Doctor would do the same. That beacon: some said the person who sent the message was the woman who killed the Doctor. Sarah Jane had ignored that until now.

But to let yourself be thrown in prison for longer than anyone could live: was Melody Pond really doing that to keep the Doctor’s secret safe?

_A message. From me. The universe is about to shiver. I hope you can remember the times you recently shared with Jo Grant._

_The Tardis filled in the rest._

The Tardis? Because? ...Because the Doctor wasn’t sharing his secret, but the ship, who loved him more than anyone, chose to share with Melody Pond what to say so Sarah Jane would believe her.

If the Doctor was dead, his assassin had no reason to give any message at all.

Tears stung her eyes and one fell.

“I’d like to be alone. I hope you understand. Come on, K9.” She walked slowly with her shoulders slumped until she could close her front door behind her. She sank against it and let out the breath stuck in her chest. It shook as it left her.

The tears. The tremble in her breathing. They only looked like grief.

She was betting everything on this belief, but she couldn’t let the Doctor’s friends be devastated over his supposed death. She also couldn’t just blurt it out and ruin everything he and this Melody Pond had done to protect him. _Not everyone shows up on scans or in memory_. Somebody was listening -- this Silence.

The Silence was listening. The irony in that didn't escape her.

She rushed upstairs to Mr. Smith, bringing K9 with her. She needed to call everyone and spread the truth quickly. She also needed to be subtle.

She stopped on a stair before deliberately stepping forward again.

The phone risked too much. She had to bring them here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter note: the message that UNIT gives Sarah Jane about "A group calling itself The Silence and Academy of the Question is taking credit for his murder. It was done by their assassin Melody Pond on the 22nd of April around 1700 hours in Utah, America. A place called Silencio Lake on the Plain of Sighs." is taken from Let's Kill Hitler, Closing Time, and The Wedding of River Song, showing how the Doctor's death is officially reported to everyone and written in the universe's records.


	2. Put A Bullet Through Melody Pond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Starjargon for the wonderful job of being a beta!

Tears marked everyone’s faces.

Barbara and Ian sat close together, looking the same age as when they had stepped into the first Doctor’s Tardis. Their dark hair had no grey, their light skin had no wrinkles. They drew looks from all the others once they each discovered that this was _the_ Barbara and Ian.

Tegan, who had left her work with Australia’s aborigines to come here, remembered Sarah Jane instantly from their adventure involving four out of the first five incarnations of the Doctor. Her brown hair was only a bit longer around her creamy face, and her former mod clothing style was hinted at in her black dress.

Dorothy McShane, or Ace as she was once known, seemed to waver between grief and anger, her light brown ponytail both similar and different to the style she wore when she travelled with the seventh Doctor. Seeing her temper so close to the surface, creating a tinge of red to her honey complexion, reminded Sarah Jane how she’d been once known for her Nitro 9 explosives.

Martha and Mickey sat together and off to the side of the group, looking the same as the last time Sarah Jane had seen them. Martha had her black hair up and they wore matching grieving expressions on their warm brown faces. Her hands were clasped tight and gripped between her knees. He straddled the bench so he could better hold his wife for both their sakes.

Jack moved to stand behind Wilf, gripping his shoulder. The former Time Agent looked torn between crying and wanting to kill somebody. Jack... _poor Jack_ , thought Sarah Jane. He had been through too much emotional damage these past few years. He had lost his work and his purpose with all of Torchwood now completely destroyed. His whole team except for Gwen was dead. Sarah Jane knew _something_  had happened with Jack’s daughter, but he refused to talk about it. And Ianto... if only Ianto had been spared. Had he lived, Jack would still have love, comfort, and some happiness in his life. But he hadn’t, and now the Doctor’s death had annihilated whatever healing Jack may have felt. She understood that; she still felt pain over the Brigadier’s death and if the Doctor was dead too, every memory of their times together would be crippling.

Sarah Jane’s son Luke, along with Clyde and Rani, the two other teens who worked with her to keep Earth safe, sat next to Jo. She had come by herself instead of with her grandson, like she had the last time Sarah Jane had seen her. Warm and lovely Jo Grant Jones, her silver hair complimenting her luminous skin tone, lighter than Sarah Jane’s, acted as her hostess while she waited for the last guests she had managed to invite here. She had gathered as many as she could, as quickly as she could, telling them that they would make plans once they were all together on what to do in this Doctor-less universe. She would have to figure out later how she would spread the word to the ones who couldn’t make it - such as Ben and Polly, who were in India, and friends of the first and second Doctors.

Candles flickered in the slight breeze and plenty of hands reached for the boxes of tissues Sarah Jane had set out around her garden. K9 looked so tiny, his head continually down since the news, despite him saying he experienced none of the emotions the others felt. He had not called Luke “Master” in days.

Footfalls in the drive told her that the last guests were arriving. A woman with ginger hair brighter than Donna’s, especially against her black suit and white complexion, walked next to a man with light brown hair and only slightly darker skin; a red convertible was parked behind them. Everyone grieving had dressed in black or at least subdued colours. As an example, Jack didn’t wear his usual long coat but a black suit jacket over a dark shirt. The jacket was long enough to make Sarah Jane wonder if he hid a gun under it.

Poor Donna. At least she didn’t have to carry the pain the others here did. Not that it was much consolation for the life’s memories the Doctor had removed.

“Amy and Rory?” she asked, and they nodded. “I’m Sarah Jane Smith. Thank you for coming.”

They both replied with the usual ‘thanks for inviting them’ before she took Amy’s hand in between hers. She had to look up to see their faces. “It must be worse for you. I heard you were there with him.” She left enough time for their answer before carefully saying what she really wanted. Like Melody had pointed out in Gunnersbury Park: someone could be watching and listening and they wouldn’t know they were there. In fact, she had her sonic lipstick in her pocket in case she did have to disable the wrong people using a device against them. It would just be her luck for the Slitheen or some other enemy to attack now.

“It must be horrible for you, having to watch it happen,” she began. “I don’t know what I would do if I saw it. It must have hurt so much that I can’t imagine anything _could relieve it_.” She squeezed Amy’s hand on that last part. She didn’t know why, but she swore Melody would tell Amy Pond the truth about the Doctor. UNIT had said they were related somehow and if Melody wanted Sarah Jane to know the facts, she would never leave Amy and Rory in pain. “I heard he asked you to be there without telling you what would happen. Isn’t that just like him? Always making the decisions for us. Telling us things, _not telling us things_.” She gave Amy’s hand another small squeeze. “Swearing he knew what was best without ever asking.”

Those brown eyes darted back and forth between her own. Sarah Jane knew she asked for a lot, but maybe, just maybe, Melody had told Amy it was all right.

Amy finally gave her everything she could hope for: she slightly squeezed back on her hand. “He’s an idiot. I always told him so.”

Her husband's hand fell to the small of her back. “Amy.”

“Yeah, sorry. _Was_ an idiot. I still get it wrong sometimes.”

The strain in Sarah Jane’s back and shoulders relaxed at last for the first time since UNIT told her the news. “Yes, well. I think we’re all doing that.” Amy hadn't forgotten to use present tense. She had just confirmed Melody's message and sent her own.

Sarah Jane ushered them in and began introductions before she left them talking quietly with Martha as she made her way to Jo. She sat down next to her predecessor and took her hand as she had just taken Amy’s.

“Jo, do you remember when we first met? We said we both had a notion about the Doctor and how we felt.”

Jo’s abundant personality could never do quiet. “A notion? You mean at his funeral.” Tears built in her brown eyes and a few cringed around them. Luke started coming closer to his mother, but she shook her head letting him know she was all right.

“Yes, then. And we both said we thought that if the Doctor died, we would...” She held Jo’s hand tighter as in comfort.

The tears in Jo’s eyes suddenly had a different shine. “You have that feeling now?”

“Like I did then.” _That the Doctor hadn’t died_.

That Jo smile -- whether she used Jo Grant or Jo Jones -- that smile held the same brightness of a newborn world. Her hair caught the candlelight in the garden. “I feel like you do.”

Sarah Jane hated to kill that smile, but they didn’t know if the wrong people were watching. “It’s so cruel, isn’t it? These people who are taking credit, they seemed to have tracked him down wherever he went. Even places like here where you wouldn’t think it’d matter.”

Jo took a deep breath and dimmed that smile. “It’s very cruel, all of it.”

Tegan interrupted them. “Who are these Silent Academy people? Does anyone know?”

Sarah Jane answered, “I think Amy and Rory can help us there.”

“Amy and Rory!” Jo exclaimed as something clicked into place. “The Doctor mentioned you the last time I saw him. You’re the Ponds! The married couple on the Tardis!”

Rory interjection of _It’s Williams_ couldn’t be really heard over Jack’s yell. “ _Ponds_! As in  Melody Pond?”

Sarah Jane shot to her feet. “Jack--”

But Amy was already in his face and her being only an inch shorter made her nearly eye to eye. “You want to say something about my daughter?” Her Scottish accent growing thicker only emphasised the threat.

Wilf looked up, confused. “Your daughter?”

“Time travel,” Sarah Jane quickly explained, instinctively guessing the answer. “Jack, please!”

“I have plenty to say about _your daughter_ ,” he shouted. “Including what I'm going to do to her for killing the Doc!”

“Jack, listen!” Sarah Jane tried again. The group swung in every reaction imaginable and she had lost control. She had brought them here to end their pain, not to have it raised to a fury. But every reopened wound from the past two years of Jack’s life poured a toxin of pain and anger through him. It showed in his voice and the dark storm in his expression, and it spread like a virus to the others. Only Jo understood, of course, and tried to help her bring things back to where they should be.

Dorothy McShane moved up next to Jack’s shoulder. “Your daughter killed the Professor?”

“Twelve thousand consecutive life sentences!” Amy shouted back at him, ignoring the other woman. “In a maximum security prison!”

“She’s not going to serve them, because I’m putting a bullet--!”

“Jack!” Sarah Jane shouted. She put herself between them. His blue eyes were hard as ice and stood out shockingly against his dark hair and light pink skin. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. You know he wouldn’t want this.”

“He’s gone. So are his rules.” Jack bore down on Amy again. “Because of your daughter.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

Jack glared, unintimidated. “I’ve been clear about that.”

Amy gave him a dark smile. “How? You don’t know where she is.”

It stopped him. For a second. He touched his vortex manipulator and, even though Sarah Jane thought the device wasn’t capable of time travel anymore, she slipped her hand to her sonic lipstick. If she was wrong, she’d disable it before Jack could leave. He’d be furious, but he didn’t give her a choice.

But his hand moved away to jab a finger in Amy’s face. “I’ll find a way.”

“Please.” Barbara stood up to speak and, just like the Doctor’s older incarnations deferring to his original self, everyone in the garden respected her position and quieted. “You say the Doctor wasn’t this. Like he was never violent. He was, and, if we’re all honest, we each saw that side of him.”

Ian didn’t have to touch her to support her. Like any well matched couple that had been together for long, they spoke of being half of each other without word or movement. “Barbara had to stop him from murdering a man in cold blood on our very first trip with him.”

“And we can be just as much that side of him as we can be his other. It’s our choice.” She directed this at Jack before she pleaded with Amy, “Even so, you clearly must not understand how devastating this is for us.”

“Don’t tell us what we understand.” Rory’s voice was soft but didn’t relent. “You didn’t see what happened. We did.”

“It obviously didn’t hurt you as much,” Mickey said, “Sorry, but it has to be true when you can stand there and say what you’re sayin’.”

Amy spun on him. He couldn’t know that she quoted her daughter, but with an added deadly tone. “You are _so_  wrong.”

“That’s _enough_.” Sarah Jane stood in the middle of the garden, in the middle of everyone, so what she said included all of them. “I’m going to say it again. This is getting us nowhere.”

“ _They_  didn’t kill the Doctor. Melody _Pond_ \--” Jack growled and Martha reminded him that Sarah Jane told him to wait.

Amy was cut off by Wilf. His tears had caught in the lines of his ruddy face and grey beard. “Are you saying that you’re defending what she did?”

“You can’t!” Dorothy bit out.

Rory’s eyes seized Wilf. “If that was true, I never would have let her plead guilty. _She_  never even defended _herself_. She’s in a hellhole for _thousands_ of years. She’ll never live without being punished for this.”

Dorothy blinked at that. Mickey let out a deep breath, and one by one, they each looked to the other, their rage deflating. Sarah Jane thought they had finally reached the end of the argument, but they hadn’t.

Jack faltered, but he hadn’t been able to win against the 456 by destroying their purpose or them; he had to give in and make sacrifices to save Earth’s children. Sarah Jane knew that much. Now he funnelled everything he wished he could have done years ago into a target he _could_  strike: Melody Pond.

Before he could do anything, Martha was up and by his side. “Don’t do this, Jack. She’s paying for what she did.”

“Not enough, Martha. Not for ambushing the Doctor.”

“She didn’t ambush him,” Rory came back with just as much steel, even if it was quieter than Jack’s. “He pushed it on her. He went up and demanded she do it. She refused, she drained the energy out of the weapons built into the astronaut suit--”

Mickey interrupted with a confused, “Astronaut suit?”

Rory went on with no break. “-- and told him to run. He kept trying to force her and she stopped time. She admitted she might have no choice to do anything else, but it didn’t stop her from sending a message across the universe asking them to help him.”

Wilf got to his feet, raising a hand. “I got that message.” Mumbles of agreement spread through them all.

“Everyone did.” Amy hadn’t stopped glaring at Jack. “She built a beacon. It reached everywhere in space and time.” Pride showed around her anger.

“He finally pleaded,” Rory finished. “It was a fixed point and everyone would be killed if it didn’t happen.” He paused there, considering something, but before Sarah Jane could ask what, he made a decision, shaking his head at whatever it was. “He kept going until he convinced her. He sacrificed himself and she cried the hardest. She’ll never get over it. She sacrificed the new life she had built. With us, with the Doctor, for _herself_.” He swallowed and barely got out the next words above a whisper. “She got her doctorate that morning. She was in a cell that night.”

The garden had gone silent back at the beginning. Rory had stilled them with _He pushed her to do it_. A few swallowed, and Wilf looked like tears were coming back. Barbara dropped back into her seat, and now her husband touched her in support. That was the most anyone could manage.

No, not quite. Rani spoke, her Indian features alight with understanding. Her speaking now left Sarah Jane to wonder if the teenagers had felt they couldn’t say anything before. “You had to agree too. Right?”

Amy stared at her, her mouth shut tight. Then: “We didn't have time.”

Rory put an arm around her waist and ushered her out. “We should go. I’m sorry, Miss Smith. We just made everything worse.”

“No, wait!” Sarah Jane rushed over. “Don’t go. Let me explain to them.”

She turned in a slow circle as she spoke so she could look at each one of them. “Melody came to me. She warned me about UNIT turning up with the news about the Doctor. And she indirectly told me--”

“No!” Amy shouted.

She spun back to the Ponds. “Please,” she begged Amy.

“If she wanted them to hear it, she’d have told them instead of just you.”

Sarah Jane crossed back those few steps between them. “They’re hurting as much as you did. I know how I felt after Melody came to me. I’m sure you felt the same way.”

Rory had an arm around himself as he rubbed his forehead with the other hand. He made his mind up just as Sarah Jane finished and touched his wife’s arm. He nodded quickly to her.

Amy looked back at him for a long, hard second before agreeing, even if she did so with an impatient noise and a belligerent glare at Harkness.

“Hold on.” She pulled pens out of her pocket and handed one to her husband. He looked at it with a combination of disgust and resignation. He turned so they were back to back and shoved up his sleeve to expose the skin on his arm. “Okay. Go.”

Their heads turned as they scanned all around them, high and low and everywhere in between. The pens hovered over their arms.

“What’s going on?” Clyde asked, his eyebrows knit in confusion against the warm umber of his forehead.

“I think,” Ian answered him, “this has something to do with their knowing more about the people who killed the Doctor.”

Sarah Jane darted glances about her garden as she flipped up the face of her scanner watch. She asked K9 to check for electronic devices and life signs other than theirs as a backup to her own scans, but mostly she waited and bit back on telling the Ponds to hurry up.

Luke came over. “I’ll go ask Mister Smith to scan too, Mum,” he offered, referring to the living, extraterrestrial computer in their attic. “I’ll text you if he finds anything.” He looked to Clyde and Rani to follow him into the house, his medium skin tone made lighter by their darker complexions.

Sarah Jane found nothing on her watch, but she still relied on the Ponds. Something made her trust their experience more than anything else. The alien members of the Silence were so new in their knowing they existed, even the Doctor, that she wondered if they would be in the databanks.

Amy and Rory turned, always in orbit with each other, until she was face to face with Sarah Jane again. The ginger blinked and then husband and wife hurriedly put their bare arms next to each other.

“Nothing,” Rory said. Amy quickly instructed Sarah Jane, “Okay. Tell him.”

She still took the precaution of whispering it in Jack’s ear. As she stepped back to call Luke on his mobile to tell him just as quietly, she saw Jo had told Tegan, who immediately went to Ian and breathed it to him and Barbara. Now they went rapidly around the garden so the word went out in a hush to each person.

 _The Doctor is alive_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes: In case someone thinks I was wrong about Amy’s eyes, Karen Gillan’s eyes are brown by the time of "The Wedding of River Song", even though they were originally green when she joined the show. If you look at pictures of her through the two series, they go from green to hazel and then to brown. No, she never wore coloured contacts; it just happened as she aged. :) BTW: her cousin, Caitlin Blackwood, has blue eyes, although no one noticed the difference when she played young Amelia Pond and Karen played Amy.
> 
> Jack’s vortex manipulator is turned off again by the Doctor in "Journey’s End" and he reprimands Jack about ever fixing it. That's why Sarah Jane doesn't know if it works. She has no idea Jack went against what the Doctor said again.


	3. Silence Will Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Starjargon for the beta!

_The Doctor is alive. You can’t let on._

Incredulous stares instantly turned back to their previous sad expressions in case someone was watching. Even so, Jack needed to point out: “How do we know it’s true?”

Amy shot back, “Did you just call us liars?!”

Sarah Jane nearly yelled, “Jack, Amy! Please, stop!” The other two kept their gazes locked on each other, but they ceased talking. She glanced down at Amy and Rory’s arms; she wasn’t exactly sure why they had circled before with pens at the ready, but apparently no marks meant they had some safety. She didn't know if she should, but kept her faith in their experience. “Jack, the Tardis told Melody Pond what to say to me so I’d know it was true.” She took in everyone in the garden. “The _Tardis_ did that. Why would she for the person who killed the Doctor? How would Melody Pond even get onboard? The Tardis would shut down and no one,” indicating Amy and Rory, “including the people traveling with him last, could do anything with her, let alone make her talk to the Doctor’s murderer.”

One head turned to another, and then either quietly thought about that or started to say something, but then didn’t. One by one, they nodded until everyone turned to Dorothy and Jack. She took a few minutes before giving a strong nod too. Jack took another moment until, finally, the hard lines running down his body eased.

Sarah Jane relaxed. It was over at last. “Good.”

Barbara broke the quiet. “I admit that I still don’t understand everything.”

Sarah Jane gave a small smile back. “Oh, I’m sure we all have questions.”

“Um, yeah.” Rory reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a black vortex manipulator. “River’s. A middle version. She said you might want to see her, Miss Smith. She programmed in the coordinates.”

Jack grew pale and Sarah Jane thought they had already lost the fragile peace they had just made. She didn’t have to worry. “Wait, River? You said she time traveled -- River Song? You know _River Song_?”

Rory sighed. “Why? What has she done now?” Amy punched him on the arm and he realised his mistake. “Sorry. It’s a habit. And you know it’s true,” he insisted quietly to his wife.

Jo’s smile was as bright as when Sarah Jane had first hinted the Doctor was alive. “Oh, I know people like that, including me.”

Amy looked back at Harkness. She didn’t seem happy about revealing the next part, but she did it anyway for some reason she didn’t explain. “Take the name and think about it.” She used her hands to suggest a reverse flip and his eyes went wide.

“River Song is your daughter.” He said it in a whisper. “She’s Melody Pond.”

“Middle version?” Dorothy asked, going back to what Rory had said. She clearly didn’t know the importance of the River Song pseudonym anymore than Sarah Jane, so she returned to the thing that seemed more important, at least in terms of erasing some confusion.

“Time travel again,” Amy answered. “She’s actually not a middle version, just six years older than the River you saw in the park, Miss Smith. The coordinates will take you to the younger River. You have to leave the vortex manipulator with her. It’s how she gets this one.”

Tegan Jovanka looked around. “I think I get it. Not so sure, though.”

“She comes home from different points of her timeline,” Rory explained.

“Why?”

Amy stared at her for missing the obvious. “To see us. We’re her _mum_ and _dad_.”

Jo clapped her hands in excitement. “That’s brilliant! Imagine being able to see my mother and father at any age before I was born. Or at any point of my age now! I’d have so much to ask them!”

Sarah Jane thought about the time a few years ago when she had finally been able to meet her own parents, right before they had so bravely sacrificed themselves to save the world. How it had meant everything to hear how proud they were of her. She knew why Jo said what she did and she absolutely understood the Ponds.

Ian turned to Barbara. “Imagine being able to see Susan again. And our cranky Doctor.”

She smiled brightly. “We could even see her after she got married. We’ve always wanted to know how she did. She left in a ghastly time.”

“Please, I don’t understand,” Wilf said. It turned out he meant something other than River’s different ages. “Your daughter is in prison for the rest of her life. To protect the Doctor?”

Amy’s expression turned hard and she bit it out. “Yes.”

Martha asked, “Then how-- sorry, but how does she visit you if she’s in prison?”

Rory now shrugged. “She does that. Escapes, goes back.” He seemed to not see the incredulous looks around him. “She has to, go back I mean. She promised to keep the Doctor safe and Stormcage is part of it.”

“She gets it from him." Amy jerked her head at her husband. “It’s the kind of thing he’s done.”

Harkness mouthed, ‘Stormcage’. He seemed to know what that meant and it looked like he was the only one. Sarah Jane certainly didn't. But he loosened up more at the thought of River Song escaping what must the prison’s name whenever she liked. He even smiled a bit and Sarah Jane breathed a sigh of relief. He looked pointedly down at Amy’s unmarked arm before daring to ask, “Has the Doctor talked to you since?”

Rory shook his head. “No one has seen him, not that we know of, anyway. Well, except River. He doesn’t know she told us either. You know -- about everything. We had to convince one of her younger versions that it was okay.”

‘Or she might never have come to see me,’ Sarah Jane thought.

A lot of hope slipped away around the circle as they dealt with the fact they may never see the Doctor again. They felt the absolute relief that he was alive, but in the past, when it could've been the last time he’d ever appear on their doorsteps, a tiny voice still whispered that he might, just might, show up one more time. But not when he had to pretend to be dead.

Jack thought about it quietly and then raised his head. “Let me make up for what I said. Let me go see her.”

Amy scowled. “Not you. She said Miss Smith. You’re not going anywhere near her.”

“Please, call me Sarah Jane. Maybe it would be better,” Smith interceded, “if Melody--”

“River,” Amy corrected. “We use Melody. And the Doctor. She made the name hers again, but only for herself and us.”

 _He became one of only three people you let call you Sarah_. She remembered the sadness when Melody Pond had said everyone would know her name. She knew they would use it the way it had been corrupted. Only Amy, Rory, and the Doctor would say it the way it was meant to be. “Of course. Melody should be for you. I was saying, River seemed willing to talk to us, so maybe she could come here. That way, we all get a chance to see her.”

“Sorry, still not comfortable with it,” Rory said. Steel rose again behind the quiet man’s eyes. Maybe Jack saw it or maybe he understood being a father himself. Perhaps he just went along with it to stop the fighting.

“I don’t blame you,” he said.

Wilf walked over to her and reached out to Amy. She weighed the gesture and let him touch her arm. “Please,” he begged quietly. “I’d like to thank her.”

Dorothy McShane came up to his side. “We gave you a hard time, but switch places with us. Would you be any different? But we understand now and we’d like to tell her so.”

Amy’s firm expression stayed set as Rory took a beat before leaning over to whisper in her ear. She moved a step away from Wilf to better focus on her husband. Her head swung over to him when he stopped talking and they shared something quietly between them. He nodded first, just one quick bob of his head, and then she answered with a small nod too.

“I’m going.” Rory began to strap the black device on his wrist. “I’ll tell River what you said and we’ll leave it up to her.”

Tegan spoke up. “Could you tell her that the Doctor has friends here? So does she.”

“Wait one moment,” Sarah Jane added and went into her house while the Ponds digested what Tegan had said. She hastily called Luke for information from Mr. Smith and scrawled a few lines onto a piece of paper. She came back with an envelope and heard Mickey teasing Martha. “Mum fight: yours, Jackie Tyler, and Amy Pond. Who do you think wins?” His wife grinned and nudged him. Good man Mickey, easing the tension like that.

Sarah Jane handed the envelope to Rory. “It’s everything she’ll need. I put the coordinates to my office in there, in case she wants to be sure no one sees her, and I added a note from me asking her to come here. I hope you don’t mind.”

Rory slipped the envelope inside his jacket. His wife gave him a small shove. “Go see your daughter, Centurion.”

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and hit the button on the vortex manipulator.

An awkward silence fell over the garden. Amy sat next to where she had been standing. Jack nearly took the place next to her and thought better of it after everything that had happened.

They had put a gap between them and the Ponds. A physical gap and one made up of their attitudes. Amy and Rory were Melody’s parents. No one forgot they were also the Doctor’s current companions, but their mindset and actions focused only on the Ponds’ daughter and Amy had naturally stood on the other side of the line drawn in the sand. Now they measured the divide they, including Amy, had created.

That didn’t stop Jo. She went over and took the empty seat. “I’m sorry for what you had to go through. If I had been there and if it was my daughter -- I’m not going to insult you by saying I know just how you’re feeling.”

Amy said, “Thanks,” and meant it.

Sarah Jane spoke, breaking the quiet that followed Jo and Amy: “It’s still sinking in. The universe without the Doctor. No more, ‘Hello, Sarah.’”

Amy looked into her own broken hope. “No more, ‘Come along, Pond!’”

Ian brightened: “He said that to you? He said it to us too.”

Barbara asked the group, “Does anyone know if they ever saw each other again? The Doctor and Susan.”

Ian tacked on, “And they wanted to get back to Gallifrey someday. Did they make it?”

Sarah Jane hurriedly reassured them, “Oh, yes! Tegan and I both met Susan on Gallifrey. They saw each other there. All the charges were dropped against them and the Tardis was even recommissioned. You could say they both were.” Because despite what happened later in the Time War, the Doctor had been happy to go home now and then, either because he needed to help them -- like the time he had her leave the Tardis -- or when they helped him. He always left to explore the universe once more. Never happy to settle down again after, as Sarah Jane always suspected, he lost his wife there. No matter who else went along, it was he and the Tardis off to see everywhere.

Barbara’s face glowed over that. She leaned into Ian who laid his head gently against hers. He said wistfully, “I would like to hear one more ‘Come along, my boy.’” His warmth spread to everyone around him as they began quoting the Doctor.

Jack said with a smile aimed at the past: “I asked him who looks at a screwdriver and thinks this could be a little more sonic. He asked me, haven’t I ever gotten bored?”

Mickey went next. “Rule One: Don’t wander off. I don’t think anyone listened to that.”

Ian grinned. “He didn’t call it Rule One, but he gave us the same order. We never listened either.”

Tegan added, “As you’re told. He told me once that he said that as the fourth Doctor. Rule One - do as you’re told. Except with someone called Leela. His big thing with her was ‘no more Janus thorns’, whatever they were.”

Amy’s mobile rang. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket, but said before answering the call, “River said that. We had to do ‘what the Doctor’s friends always do. As we're told’. I didn’t know she was quoting him. Hello, stupid face,” she said into the phone. Sarah Jane wondered who she could be talking to like that.

Dorothy didn’t hear Amy speaking into the phone, because she already spoke over top of it. “My favourite is a bit long. I don’t know if I can remember it all, but it went something like, ‘Worlds are out there where the sky burns, and the rivers dream.’ I know the part about rivers is right. Hearing the name River Song made me remember that at least. The rest of it kind of went, ‘Somewhere there's danger, and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.’”

Martha said, “I don’t know why, but I keep thinking of when he warned me, we might die. I told him, ‘we might not.’”

Tegan’s lively spirit became quiet. “He told you that you might die? Maybe he finally remembered instead of me being around reminding him.”

Mickey’s forehead scrunched into confused lines. “Remind him about what? That you could die?”

“No, that Adric did.” She glanced around at the stunned people. “He traveled with the Doctor, like all of us. He died trying to save us and it ended up being for nothing. And then, Nyssa... Nyssa got ill. She left to help the other people who had the same disease. She wanted to spend the time she had left taking on their Cause.” Her eyes stayed rooted on the ground and didn’t see Sarah Jane starting to comfort her. “It was like everything bad that could happen to Nyssa, happened. The Master took over her father’s body almost at the time she met the Doctor and then she ends with an incurable disease. I couldn’t take much more after both she and Adric were gone. I left for good not long after that.”

She noticed Sarah Jane as well as Jo, Martha and Mickey looking at her and clearly not knowing what to say. Wilf and the others looked at each other, just as much at a loss for words. “I’m sorry, I brought everyone down.”

Amy hadn’t heard them. She had a finger to one ear to better hear whoever was on the phone. “Don’t be daft. You know she’s going to do what she wants.”

Sarah Jane came to sit by Tegan and put an arm around her shoulders. “You told us about your friends. You don’t need to be sorry about that.”

Martha came over and put a hesitant hand on her knee. “You said the Master put his Time Lord energy in a human body?” Tegan nodded. “How long did it last? A few days, a few hours?”

“Years,” Jovanka answered. “As long as I saw him anyway.”

Dorothy asked, “Dark hair, goatee? Liked to wear black?” Tegan nodded again. “That’s what he looked like when I saw him too. How old was your Doctor when it happened?”

Tegan thought about it. “He said at some point that he was in his mid-500s then.”

“So the Master stayed in that body for a couple hundred years, because my Doctor was in his mid-900s.”

“But--” More than one face riveted to those words, especially Wilf. They didn’t care about the Ninth and Tenth Doctors giving an age actually younger by centuries, because the point was: Donna could maybe be saved. If the Master could do it, surely the Doctor could figure it out after all. Then the enthusiasm faded as fast as their hope. It was still a Doctor-less universe. Odds were: he’d never show up again. He might come back for Donna’s sake, but he evidently hadn’t thought of a way to do what the Master had done or he would have done it already.

It made Sarah Jane say, “He wished so many times he could change things. But he couldn’t, not--”

Amy caught that as she hung up her mobile. “Not one line.”

Barbara looked at her in surprise. Happy surprise. “He said that to me. When I said I would wipe out evil by going back in history.”

“He said it to River when she tried to avoid -- well, killing him.”

Her words heralded the noise of Sarah Jane’s front door banging open. The strength of it made them hear it even from the garden. River Song blasted in a second later with the force of a sonic boom. She didn’t look around, but targeted Jack. She went up tight against him, putting herself between he and Amy. Her words came out in a snarl. “You threatened my mother!”

She wore a grey tank top over a black one with soft, form fitting trousers and combat boots. Sarah Jane didn’t notice the outfit for itself, only that it revealed strong shoulders and muscles underneath the honey coloured skin, darker than Dorothy’s.

Rory showed up in the garden, hurrying to stop his daughter. “That’s not what I said. If you weren’t as stubborn as Amy and rushed here, you’d have heard me.”

Amy told her, “He threatened you, actually.”

River’s head snapped from listening to her mother back to Harkness. She finally became aware of everyone else looking at her. “Oh. I see,” she said quietly. Her eyes dropped down and she said nothing until she finally spoke to herself, “Well then.” She came back up to Jack and held her arms away from her body. “Here I am.”

It wasn’t a dare to make a move. She offered herself up to his revenge. She still protected the Doctor and at her own expense, Sarah Jane saw. Still played the role of the Doctor’s killer. She had no idea she didn’t have to with them anymore.

Amy shot up to her feet. “Stop that! Do you think we would bring you here so he could kill you?”

“Mother,” River said firmly, still facing Jack. “Stay out of this.”

He took a step back. “It’s okay, Miss Song.”

“Doctor Song,” Rory insisted.

“Of course, Doctor Song. I’m not looking to--”

Sarah Jane didn’t want to interrupt Jack when he really needed to explain, but she saw something that made her heart freeze. “Amy, why do you have those marks on your arm?”

The ginger stared down at three black lines stark against her white skin. “Rory!”

He ran to River’s other side so they flanked their daughter. “Everyone look around! If you see something that looks like that painting the _Scream_ , don’t look away! Just let everybody know you’ve seen it!”

Sarah Jane spun around frantically. She saw everyone else did the same. She grabbed for her phone as she ordered, “K9, scan for life forms other than us! Luke!” Her son had answered and she told him to tell Mr. Smith the same thing about finding anyone else in the garden or anywhere near the house. She used her scanner watch again.

They each called out, “Clear!” or “I don’t see anything”, until they heard Martha’s sickened whisper, “I found them.”

Sarah Jane’s watch beeped at the same time, but she didn't need it now. Sarah Jane turned around and saw them coming into her garden.

K9 said, "Mistress! I found a life form. It--"  
  
"Never mind." 

Three of them, just as the marks on Amy’s arms had warned them. The large heads covered in a dead man’s grey skin, with their eyes inside oversized sockets and jaws like mummified corpses. Their tall, skinny bodies clad in black suits of crinkled fabric branched into overly long arms and fingers. Everything about them was terrifying as they towered above each one of them. The universe created new nightmares the same way it made incredible wonders.

River took a step forward with tight fists against her side. “Get out. It’s over. You got what you want.”

The one in the center answered her. Its voice sounded male, but that meant nothing. It could have no gender at all. The voice echoed as if it answered deep within the cavern of its head and became sibilant on any ‘s’ sounds. “Your mission is not over, Melody Pond. You still belong to us.”

“No, I don't!” she yelled.

“You are still the weapon against the Doctor. You made him trust you. He walked into his death.”

River’s body quivered with her fury. “You have no hold on me. My life is _mine_.”

“You must complete that part of your task for the fixed point. You must see him younger. You must make him trust you.”

“You’re wrong if you think you can make me do anything.”

Amy and Rory moved to a step behind River’s shoulders at this threat. Everyone else rose to their feet and formed a semi-circle in back of them, but Sarah Jane noted how the aliens almost completely blocked the path back to the house.

Amy pushed River behind her. “You’re not taking her again.”

“We are not here to reclaim our property.”

The Ponds started a shoving match over which of them stood in front of the other two to form a shield. River temporarily won and she fired back, “I am not your property!”

“We are not here to take you with us.” Lightning sizzled around their hands. “We are here to protect you from them. They have threatened your life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the quotes they give in this chapter are true, although Dorothy "Ace" McShane's for the Seventh Doctor has been shortened. The full thing is, "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do!"
> 
> The facts about Adric and Nyssa are also true, including the Master putting Time Lord energy into a human brain with no problem . (He actually did it twice, but these Companions wouldn't know about the second time.)


	4. You Can Be Punished

**_RUN!_ **

Sarah Jane thought it, she yelled it, and she heard the others shout it at the same time. “K9, protect us!”

The deadly electricity grew around the Silents’ hands and they moved in a way that was both terrifying and graceful. Their mouths opened into wide O’s like they would inhale everyone in the garden.

“Don’t look away!” Amy shouted to everyone. “When you look away, you don’t remember them!”

K9 already had his gun out and fired on the Silents. The monster on the right aimed its hand and shot first. Sarah Jane nearly screamed at the thought of losing him again, but Jack suddenly stepped behind him. He pushed K9 aside with one foot as he took a shooter’s balanced stance. The Silent’s bolt of killing energy struck the ground and Jack fired. The shot hit the alien in the shoulder, but he never hesitated and launched another attack; this one branched out and looked even more like lightning in a macabre imitation of Zeus.

River Song appeared from nowhere and slammed into Jack with a full body block that tackled him to the ground a couple feet away from where the Silent aimed.

“Immortal!” Jack shouted and started scrambling from underneath her.

“Don’t count on it!” she shouted back. “They vaporize! There’d be nothing left of you to come back, not even dust!”

He had looked up at her and the sky when they fell. His forehead furrowed with confusion. “What’s going on?”

Sarah Jane asked herself the same thing. She saw laser blasts everywhere and didn’t know why.

River already had jerked her head over to the aliens. Jack made a guttural noise and Sarah Jane gasped when she saw them. How could they be in her garden and she not know?

River grabbed Jack’s wrist without bothering to stand. She started to hurriedly program his vortex manipulator. “Does this thing at least teleport? Never mind. If it doesn’t work now, it will after I’m done.”

“Don’t send me! Where’s yours? You gotta have one to get here!”

“Bring it back with you! We need someone who knows what they’re doing!”

“You are a fool, Melody Pond,” the Silent in the middle said in one long sibilant jeer.

“Don’t you use my daughter’s name!” Amy snarled at them.

They ignored her for River. “You attempt to save the ones who will kill you if we were to leave.”

Her fingers stilled in a hover over Jack’s wrist. Amy shouted, “No, River!”

“Amy!” Rory yelled. “You looked away!”

A Silent launched its lethal charge at them. They jumped away in opposite directions.

River screamed in fury. “ _LEAVE MY PARENTS ALONE!_ ”

“We cannot allow you to die from your misjudgments.”

Sarah Jane’s stomach took a sickening plummet. They couldn’t tell her what they knew about the Doctor. But River kept moving to save all of them if she could, even if it meant, in her mind, they would kill her when this was through.

“Hey,” Jack started, “I’m not -- look out!”

They landed a few feet away from each other. River dove back and did a bellyflop on the ground. She snatched his wrist and keyed the last couple commands. She put herself between the Silents and Jack like a shield, and grabbed him by the shoulders. She threw him across the garden at Rory and Amy. Sarah Jane couldn’t believe the strength it would take to do that. “Get them out of here!” she shouted at him.

His eyes shot everywhere before he gave in. “I’ll be right back!” He snatched the Ponds and slammed his hand down on the vortex manipulator. Rory and Amy hollering threats at him hung in the air with the noise of the battle raging.

Mickey and Martha had grabbed the bench and threw it at the Silents. She signaled something to Ian and Barbara.

River turned and she froze at seeing Wilf and Jo. She buried her face in her hands and cursed herself as she jerked her whole upper body in an angry shake. “I shouldn’t have done that! Sorry!” she said to them. “Instinct!”

That was when Sarah Jane knew she meant saving her parents first before someone like Wilf who was more vulnerable.

“Stop, don’t worry about us!” he told her. “We're able to handle ourselves. Turn around!”

Mickey swung a chair as Martha threw one of the small tables at the Silents in an attempt to allow Ian and Barbara a chance to get past. They swarmed over Wilf like the Royal Protection Squad around the Queen: “You’re right, we’re able to handle ourselves right out of here.” They hustled towards the house as K9 provided covering fire, always moving to avoid being a target, but their enemies’ constant attack never allowed him to move from a defense to an answering offense. A Silent’s fire hit Ian across his arm and made him shout; Wilf got a hold of him so the three of them didn’t stop.

Still so many of them left to get to safety, past the blockade the aliens formed with themselves and their attack. The garden was a good size, but not meant for combat, and the surrounding brick wall and the house made them fish in a barrel.

But fish that fought back.

River ran to Dorothy who shouted, “I should’ve known I’d need explosives at the Professor’s funeral!” She picked up another chair and got close enough, so when she threw it, one of its legs got a Silent in the eye. She grinned in victory until its arm came around, already sparking with electricity. “Oh, damn.” River got there just as she jumped.

Sarah Jane hurried to help and then just made out her mobile ringing. She ducked behind her garden swing to answer the call. A Silent shot at her and she dove to the ground behind the rubble. She blinked at the decimated garden furniture. The next shot made her look up and she screamed inside at the nightmare she saw.

“Mum! Hang on, we’re on our way!” Luke shouted into the phone.

“Don’t you dare! You’ll only give them someone else to shoot!”

Clyde must have heard her. “We can help, Sarah Jane!”

“You can help by going downstairs and give everyone who comes in whatever they need! I’ll meet you there!” She swapped the phone for her sonic lipstick. She aimed it at the Silents and activated it as one of them took a shot at Tegan. Nothing. It had no effect. She made an aggravated noise and caught River looking over, sharing her irritation that they couldn’t use the sonic. The other woman pointed at the garden’s entrance, making Sarah Jane turn. She couldn’t believe the horror attacking them.

She remembered Amy telling her not to look away and sternly told herself not to do it again. She saw Jovenka’s look and the way she kept Jo with her. Sarah Jane nodded. One of her small tables laid on its side; she grabbed it and threw it hard.

Tegan broke into a run with Jo and tried for the gate, like Ian’s group had done. But the Silents stood ready for it this time: lightning covered the opening in a pseudo force field. They made the women turn back.

Everyone kept trying: they snatched anything they could throw and ran sideways like sped up crabs to keep their eyes on the aliens. Mickey picked up a piece of her swing and started to run at them, but he barely missed being hit and his make-shift club vaporized. He nearly lost his hands all together and he yelled as they burned. Martha grabbed and pulled him after her. River showed up and put herself between the married couple and the aliens, as Martha hurriedly snatched another piece of wood, but this time flung it like a boomerang. She nearly took off a Silent’s head who barely dodged it, but at least the distraction caused it to miss hitting them. Mickey cheered and Tegan shouted she did it like an Australian. Dorothy gave her a thumbs up.

Jack came back with a sizzle. His colour was off, Sarah Jane noticed. He held another vortex manipulator in his hand and threw it to River. “Yours! It’s set up! Wait, why are we--!” He cut himself off as he turned in the direction of the attack. He yanked his gun out and laid down another covering fire as he moved. It didn’t do as much as they hoped, because too many bolts came at them, making it impossible to stay long enough in one place for accurate shooting, or even to fire so many shots the odds meant some would hit with more damage.

And the enemy learned to move faster than they had at the start.

River shook her head. Sarah Jane barely made out what she said. “They’ve gotten better.”

River’s battle plan -- for herself -- became obvious, at least. She ran in front of whoever was in the most danger at the moment. The Silents needed her alive.

They split their efforts to attack multiple targets simultaneously. One concentrated on Jack and K9; another focused on Martha and Mickey; and the third shot at Jo and Tegan. River couldn’t protect them all at once. She called instead for Dorothy to help Mickey as much as she could as she ran to Jovenka. Sarah Jane went with Jack and ordered K9 to protect Jo’s group.

Electricity crisscrossed everywhere forcing them down and River to roll to Tegan. Martha used herself as bait to draw fire away from them as well as from Mickey. He tried coming round on the side, Dorothy on line with him, but nothing could divert the aliens long enough. They got chased off, energy blasts burning the ground where they ran.

K9 took a glancing blow that would have been a direct shot if Tegan hadn’t gotten her hand over to him and shoved him just enough out of the way. River slapped the time traveling device on the closest wrist -- Jo’s, who stretched her arm out for Tegan -- and punched the button. They disappeared just in time as a bolt passed through the spot.

Dorothy took off at full speed for River who was left out in the open. Sarah Jane could see the exact moment she remembered that River wasn’t in any danger.

K9 backed up to Sarah Jane and Jack reached for her. “No!” she shouted. Her house, her garden, her guests: she wasn’t leaving them. She pointed at Mickey and Martha, and he ran to them instead. They shouted just as loudly that they were staying, but he grabbed them as he yelled, “Twenty-five in two!”

“Harkness!” River shouted. “Give me the gun!” Too late, he had already hit the control and they were gone.

Sarah Jane had looked away again and heard K9 call, “Mistress! Dangerous lifeforms have invaded the garden!”

Bless him, he didn’t forget when he turned around.

Trapping them in the garden did nothing because of the vortex manipulators, so the Silents spread out to take them on, one on one. Sarah Jane turned to keep the closest in sight. She moved one step behind her and another, and felt herself bump into Dorothy and River who were also back to back.

“Any ideas?” she asked them. She had one, besides what already had worked. The way to her house was clear again. They could get through if they found a way to keep the one Silent from firing across the gate. A sudden movement in front of her made her shout, “Down!”

Bolts from each of the aliens sliced through the air above them. They unintentionally scurried as a group with K9 holding back the Silents as much as possible.

“I have a few ideas,” River said. “McShane?”

“Don’t worry about me. Fighter and not a screamer.”

Again they moved and K9 valiantly kept up his defense. Sarah Jane heard the smirk in River’s voice. “You know how that sounds, don’t you?”

Dorothy’s answering grin could be heard too. “Now that you mention it--”

“You two have to be kidding me!”

“Sorry, I -- Sarah Jane, move!” She felt Dorothy push her so she leapt clear.

River shouted at them and they looked around. The latest enemy attack had forced them to separate themselves from her and trapped them against the house.

River yelled again at the Silents who slowly grouped together between them. “I already warned you! You’re going to start a war with his younger versions by attacking these people!”

The answering _hiss_ dragged fingernails down Sarah Jane’s spine. “The war has already been waged. We are its victors because of you. This is merely a battle.”

“I’ll leave!” she pleaded. “Right now and never come back around them. You can let them go!”

“You believe they will not go through with their threat to punish you? You murdered the Doctor.”

Dorothy shouted, “Don’t listen to them! We-- bloody hell!”

She and Sarah Jane dropped, but they had nowhere else to go. The sound of K9’s motors got louder, but he was still across the garden. He started firing as soon as he could.

“Mistress!”

He saw it coming too. She wouldn't be able to stop the Silent this time. “It’s okay, K9. Take care of Luke.”

Dorothy snarled, “I hate them for how brilliant this was,” and braced herself.

And then: River, back in front of them. She had used the whole thing to outmaneuver the Silents and now stared them down.

“We have our limits with you, Melody Pond.”

McShane sounded disgusted as she got to her feet. “They yell at you like a kid who’s acting up.”

“No,” River answered and the sadness broke Sarah Jane’s heart. “They yell at me like a gun that jammed.”

She _charged_ the Silents and slammed into them. Two of them staggered and fell. The third caught himself just in time. She bashed him in the head with her fists clenched together like a hammer. He dropped hard. Sarah Jane marveled again at the sheer strength in the woman.

“McShane!” River shouted.

Dorothy had looked away and now stared at the aliens. But she already searched for something to use as a weapon, except nothing was left.

“No, you have to-- Sarah Jane!” River gestured hard before the aliens rose and threw her off.

Why? What was it about Dorothy that River was trying to say, and why not tell her directly?

Sarah Jane figured it out and shoved the younger woman with her shoulder a second before Jack came back right there. Those numbers he had called out: they were aimed at River. She had understood he changed part of the coordinates because he was changing where he’d come back. The last number told her how long he’d be away. That was why she hadn’t said anything out loud; so she wouldn’t give the Silents a chance to aim and kill him when he arrived.

River shouted, “Captain! Eyes front!”

He looked deadly pale before he even saw them, but started firing immediately to keep the monsters off them. “Your parents are screaming about you sending them out!” he called to River. “And that covers your son too, Sarah Jane!” He grabbed Dorothy and tossed the other vortex manipulator. He missed River and it dropped to the ground a foot away.

“Go!” she hollered. His jaw clenched, but he jumped back out.

That left her, Sarah Jane, and K9. They all knew it too. She and River ran to each other, the latter scooping up her vortex manipulator, with the mechanical dog between them and the enemy. But it gave the aliens one collective target again and they gave no quarter. Fire rained down heavier all around them and one hit right next to her foot. She jumped and rolled to the side. She had to stay low and even constantly moving wasn’t helping as she saw the Silents used their firepower to herd them to where they’d be hemmed in by shots and killed.

Even with that, she thought she and everyone else would make it. She didn’t know what they would do once they were all in her home, but they’d be out of here.

And the others _had_ to be in her house. Luke would have called back and told her if they weren’t. So she and River just had to make it to there with K9. Something had to be left for them to use. Something, anything to distract their enemy so they could break out of the garden gate.

Then each Silent raised a hand and aimed at her. The electricity crackled around their hands.

River suddenly threw her arms around Sarah Jane and pulled her in tight. Her back formed a barrier between her and that fire, and she got K9 in between their feet. “They can’t kill me.”

“But you can be punished, Melody Pond.” They shot her.

River stiffened and her head threw back, teeth clenched, and a scream forced back down her throat. Sarah Jane felt those knees tremble and the hands clenched into fists shaking from holding in the pain, but those arms didn’t drop and she refused to move away. She instead tried to get her vortex manipulator to activate, but her fingers wouldn’t work, not to even grip it, and the lightning kept coming and coming _and coming_.

Sarah Jane tried to do it herself, but their colliding hands caused the band to drop off to the side. One of the Silents tried to hit it and kept them from grabbing it.

She realized River’s back was to them, so she wouldn’t know who hurt her. “It’s those aliens, the ones who--” Dammit, she was going to have to keep up the lie. “--killed the Doctor.” She tried lowering her voice to tell the truth, but the noise around them was too great and could River understand anything through her agony?

Jack’s shout was the only thing she heard that said he had come back. River tried to talk, but opening her mouth only let out the start of a cry. She clamped her jaw shut and weakly pushed Sarah Jane. She half-stumbled, half-ran backwards with River still as the shield so she could get away.

Jack waited there and then tried grabbing them both, but the Silents used his getting close as a way to target him. River formed the centre of the bullseye and getting near her put them at ground zero. He fired at the aliens to cover his moving and Sarah Jane tried from the opposite direction to get close to the other woman, but they couldn’t escape that concentrated attack. Worse, two Silents started sweeping their deadly energy towards each of them and they darted away completely. K9 tried leading the enemy away, as Martha had, with an attack from the brick wall, but the aliens casually flicked one hand to meet and overpower the dog’s shots, and Sarah Jane could see his power ran low. He was forced to retreat, but kept up what fight he had left in him. Jack shook his head, turned so he could keep her and their attackers in his sight lines, and held out his hand.

She didn’t want to go. Leaving the other woman to that torture went against everything she felt, but if she stayed, the disgusting truth was: the Silents still wouldn’t kill River, but they would kill she and Jack by luring them in with their attack on the poor woman. They turned punishing her into a weapon.

She and Jack had to get out of the garden to force the aliens to focus on moving after everyone else. Then maybe - no, they _would_ get River out of here somehow. With the group together again and not bottled in, they had to find a way. Somehow, they _must_.

Jack ran behind her and she reluctantly took hold of his wrist, but before they could transport out, she heard someone else yell. She swung her head and couldn’t believe it.

Yes, she could. She’d do the same if Luke were here. The Ponds came back to the garden, back to their daughter, in a hard run. And Rory was armed.

Sarah Jane had killed; she once killed a family of Slitheen as they begged for their lives or for her to at least save the child. But she had stood there and watched as the explosion went off. Even though the child had ended up surviving didn’t change what she had done. So she held back her automatic response to his bringing in another gun. And remembered to look front again.

Jack swore. Now they were stuck again with more people to get out, but Rory called over to them. “Take the centre! Have the dog take the left, I got the right!”

The Silent he claimed as his greeted him. “The man who dies with this as your last battleground.” He blasted at Rory who moved away in time.

He returned fire with his white laser pistol. “No. Now I do what I thought I did on Demon’s Run. Protect my family from you.” He fired again and so did the Silent. Energy shot hit energy bolt, sparking the air.

Maybe the violence made Jack turn to her. “Sorry, but no more playing around, Sarah Jane.”

He, Rory, and K9 began the dance all over again of constantly moving while firing, at last on the offensive. Amy dodged around behind them and Jack told her to take Sarah Jane, who protested. She wasn’t leaving now. _Now_ the game had changed and she would find a way to be an active part of it again. The Silents were kept busy with only one shooting River, and Rory constantly made that one break off to defend itself. As Sarah Jane ran behind Jack, she heard him say, “Where did he get an Alpha Mason pistol?”, but the real tragedy that happened next made his words disappear from her mind.

The one alien used their own tactics against them. It dropped back so the other two Silents protected it. It fired on River, and River:

River at last collapsed. She slammed down on her knees, her arms flung wide, and her screams pouring out to the sky.

Sarah Jane passed Amy and called out mother to mother: “You don’t want me!”

She got no response except the other woman running by and she doubted Amy Pond had ever meant to come to her, which was exactly the way it should be. Rory shot in rapid fire speed, forcing his enemy to stop attacking again, and Sarah Jane saw Amy lift her daughter to her feet. “Told you.” She looked down into River’s face as she started dragging her out. “Not even an army can stand in the way.”

“I’m staying to help them,” Jack called out to her. “Grab my vortex--”

“I’m staying too!”

But the Silent who had tortured River wasn’t done. The other two heightened their attack to keep K9, Jack, and Rory busy. “Amelia Pond. We gave you honour once. You brought the Silence.”

She hunched her back but never stopped. Sarah Jane ran, grabbed River’s other arm, and slung it over her shoulders. She gave Amy credit for the strength it took to do the hardest thing: not answer them. Her daughter needed her, and a verbal battle, even for a moment, risked getting River to safety. She had her head tilted enough to keep the aliens in sight and kept moving.

“But you have forgotten your part is over. The woman who loses her daughter and will lose her again. She has a new purpose. She has no choice but to still serve us.”

The sound of  a gun firing: the Silent suddenly jerked in the air and then collapsed from Rory’s shot to its chest.

He safeguarded his wife and daughter as they struggled out of the garden. Harkness had gotten the shoulders on his Silent and the next shot killed it. That meant only the one on the left could still fire at them. K9 hit its legs and it fell, but quickly began lifting its hand again.

“Sarah Jane, keep moving!” Jack yelled.

They had to make it to the house. She knew the Silents would follow and maybe bring in reinforcements, but they still would have the temporary safety of her home. Or Harkness could get them our using the vortex manipulators. She did wonder why he and River hadn't done that to begin with: jump them somewhere far from here.

She heard running footsteps and then shots aimed back at the garden. Rory or Jack then. She called over her shoulder, “K9, come here!”

The sound of whirring motors answered her.

Her front door stood open and they finally made it through into--

\--the Tardis.

The _Tardis_!

The console room made her sag with relief and her surprise at the ship being there couldn’t supersede it. The warm colours and light soothed her as much as its presence, but most of all, it meant the Doctor had come for them. He wasn’t anywhere in sight, but that didn’t matter. He would whisk them to safety in the big, blue box.

Rory gave her a gentle push and took her place at River’s side. His daughter’s feet dragged uselessly on the floor and the toes of her boots made a harsh rubbing sound. “ _Daddy_.”

He made comforting shushing noises. “It’s okay, we got you. Just hold on to us.” Amy kissed the golden curls.

Luke ran over to Sarah Jane and they clutched each other tightly. “Mum. I tried to get to you!”

“I know.” She kissed his head before opening an arm to Rani and Clyde. “You helping out here was the right thing to do.”

Rani said as she stepped back, “Something weird is going on. Nobody remembers what happened. Even the ones who got hurt.”

Clyde looked over Sarah Jane’s shoulder. “What went on out there? Jack told us to remind him to reload every time he came back. Who’s he shooting at?”

“The--” She blinked. “I don’t know.”

“Mum, how can you not remember?”

Amy called over, “It’s how the Silents work. You look away and can’t remember them. We’ll explain later.”

Martha hurried from person to person, asking them if they were alright and working on the injuries. The Ponds surprised more than her by handling River as gently as they could up to the console instead of bringing her to the group for treatment. Rory swung the monitor around and ordered a body scan.

Jack ran in carrying the drained K9 and put him down to slam the doors behind them. “I locked the front door, but one’s still-- what -- who’s following us?”

Sarah Jane had made it to the others to help Martha. “We were attacked.”

“By who?”

“I don’t know.”

Rory dug in a drawer and came out with what must be a hypodermic. River protested, “We have to get out of here.”

“We will.” He injected it into her arm.

“I’m okay,” she insisted feebly.

“Liar.” He dropped the hypodermic on the console and pulled a small, corked test tube.

The colour suddenly drained from River’s face and her eyes took on the blank state of someone about to pass out. Amy tightened her grip.

Rory put a hand on her cheek. “River! Focus on me!”

She struggled with it, but she concentrated and then shook her head as if it would throw off what had happened to her. Sarah Jane could only remember someone had hurt the woman. “I told you I’m all right. You made it through the same thing before, at Area 52.”

“That was just my eyedrive and they didn’t hurt me as long. Stop arguing. Drink this.” He handed her the test tube and she shot down the blue liquid inside. He cupped her face in his hands. He searched her with his eyes and turned to Amy. “Got her?”

She pulled River closer so she leaned against her. “Of course. Go do your thing.”

Rory leapt the rail and landed near the group. He hurriedly started his own triage behind Martha. She glanced over. “Did the med-packs help?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she answered. Some of her hair had fallen from down around her face. “Do you have more? I was going to take people to the sickbay, but things are moved around. We’ll be fine if we have more of those kits.”

Jack nearly snapped in frustration. “Hey! How were we attacked and why can’t I remember?!”

Rory had nodded at Martha and looked back up to the console. “It’s how the Silents work.”

“Who are the Silents?”

Amy kept one arm around River’s waist, put the vortex manipulator and pistol in a compartment, and tossed two packs to Rory with the other hand. He held one out to Martha. “Here you go, two more, stocked with the best from -- well, you know.”

Sarah Jane answered Jack. “They promised to tell us later.”

Mickey looked over. “You’re confused? Somebody burned my hands and I got no idea who did it.”

Martha and Rory still focused on their work and missed this. She had smiled in thanks. “Like I said before, I’m glad you’re here, Nurse. We got minor burns and some nausea from the trips.”

“We have to go,” River announced, although Sarah Jane swore the woman was talking to herself, to the damaged body that didn’t want to move. “Now.”

More than one head swept around the room. Tegan excitedly asked the question they all wanted to know. “Where’s the Doctor?”

“Not here,” River said.

Sarah Jane’s heart plummeted into her stomach. It was more than disappointment over not seeing the Time Lord after all. Shots thudded against the doors, made all the worse because she couldn’t remember who made them. “Then how are we getting out?”

River got her feet under her. “The same way we would if he was here.” She leaned on the console hand over hand, along with Amy pressed to her side, constantly holding and moving with her. She typed at the keyboard and reached for the controls above.

Tegan’s lips parted at the sight. “You -- you’re going to fly the Tardis.”

Amy smiled. “Yeah, she is.”  She kept River upright and going as fast as they could. They acted in sync; where the daughter moved, the mother did too.

Sarah Jane, Jack, Mickey, and Martha exchanged glances. They had helped pilot the ship once, but they had needed the Doctor. River was doing what they had only seen the Time Lord do: pilot the Tardis solo.

Other sounds joined the shots. Scraping, dragging sounds against the ship’s outer shell and over its top. As if someone pulled bags of sand up the walls.

Jack grabbed his gun from its holster and put a hand on the door, ready in case something came through.

Mickey pulled Martha closer. “I can’t believe we’re being attacked and we don’t know who it is.”

River shoved the monitor around and then stretched across the console. Amy hit the control she reached for.

Sarah Jane felt her chest squeeze with fear. Monsters swarmed over the Tardis outside. Skin the colour of death, dark pits that lead to pinhole eyes at the bottom, mouths opened like black holes.

Wilf said it best. “That must be what hell looks like.”

Rory caught himself drawing hash marks on his arms. “I think they finally called in reinforcements.”

Sarah Jane remembered when they sat peacefully in her garden a lifetime ago and found three lines on Amy’s arm.

The sounds grew worse and the bodies on the monitor slid like zombies over the ship’s outer shell until they filled the gaps between them with the crackle of their electricity.

Ian shook his head in disbelief. “They made a net out of themselves.”

Worse, they began to speak. Sarah Jane expected whatever they said to be for River. For some reason, she felt it always was. She got it horribly wrong.

 _Killing her won’t bring back the Doctor_.

_You cannot save him. He is already dead._

_Save yourselves by not carrying out your threat._

_Save yourselves as you cannot save him._

_Save yourselves, Companions of the Doctor._

Then, like salvation itself, River yanked down on a lever and they were gone. The storm of the Vortex was the only thing on the monitor and speakers.

She sagged against the console. “We’re clear.”

Jack fell back against the doors, Luke hugged Sarah Jane again, and in way or another, they all let out a breath of relief. Rory and Amy looked down and saw the marks on their skin. They took each other’s hand and she buried her face in River’s hair.

The monitor cleared from showing what was outside and returned to what it had displayed before.

Jo shook her head, her silver hair dancing around her face. “Wasn’t something just on the monitor?”

Sarah Jane answered, “I don’t know. But I think I’m glad it’s gone.”

Wilf looked up at River and smiled. “We’re lucky he taught you to fly the ship. I don’t how we’d get out with just those armbands.”

Amy’s smile was covered mostly by gold curls. “He didn’t teach her. And that’s a good thing.”

Rory still had his forehead pressed against where he held his wife’s hand on the railing. “It’s how we get to things on time and the right place.”

Tegan scoffed at herself. “I should have known it wasn’t him. He didn’t teach anyone to fly the Tardis, not even Nyssa. Just a few controls to monitor things.”

Dorothy asked, “Then who did teach you? Did you find another Time Lord?”

“Better,” Amy answered again. She pulled back and grinned at River. “Let’s just say, she had lessons from the very best.”

Her daughter managed to lift her head at that. “Oo, I like that. Doctor Jones, do you still need the sickbay?”

 “Ah...” Martha had to pull her mind back. Sarah Jane knew just how she felt. “I still think we’ll be fine. I’ll let you know. We could use some chairs.”

Clyde offered hurriedly, “We’ll get them.” Luke and Rani nodded. “Anyone know where we can find some?”

No one had to do anything though. The chairs came out of the floor from hatches that formed after Martha’s words. She looked up to the console. “Uh... thanks.”

Jo pulled out two small bottles from her bag. "Lavender oil. Wonderful for burns. I got them in Saint Emilion near Libourne. It's in the Aquitaine Gironde region. A Frenchman discovered its healing properties, so I went to the home source. They're yours if you want."

Mickey tried to help his wife, the woman with a medical degree in 21st Century science, and experience in a lot more. "That’s nice, but--"

"Yeah," Martha cut in, "she's right actually. Thank you." She took one of the bottles and pointed with her chin. "Could you keep that one and help Ian?” She had already applied something else on her husband’s injuries. She started using this too. “This keeps you from getting scars. It’ll keep the pain away too after the other ointment wears off.”

Jo hustled to do as she was asked, but when she got to Ian, she pressed the bottle into Barbara's hands instead. She reached back to see what else she could do. Dorothy shook her head, signaling she was fine, and Wilf sat down just for the sake of sitting down as the adrenaline drained off.

Rory held an open med-pack at Martha. “I’m taking these to Jack.”

She glanced quickly and nodded in agreement. “He needs them. He had to do all the trips back and forth."

Rory hurried over and handed Jack two red pills. “Anti-nausea. They’re chewables, but I can get you some water.”

“Nah, it’s okay.” Jack crunched them and patted Rory’s shoulder in thanks.

Clyde asked him, “Is that why you didn’t transport the last time? You were getting sick?” He held up his hands at Jack’s stare. “Hey, no judgement here. I transported once. It made me nearly sick on the floor.”

Jack chuckled and called out to everyone in general, “Isn’t anybody going to kiss me and make me feel better?”

Mickey yelled back, “Kiss the dog.”

“Negative.” The sound warbled from K9 being so weak. “I am not engaging in such activities.”

Sarah Jane bent down to take hold of him. "K9!"

“Power exhausted, Mistress. This unit requires recharging--” he wound down.

"Here."

She spun to see what River meant. The other woman pointed weakly down to a spot on the glass floor and flipped a few things on the console. A small door popped open where Sarah Jane made out a power cord and a port. “He'll recharge faster, instead of him doing it alone.”

She hurriedly plugged him and put an arm around his neck. Luke dashed over and sat at his other side. “Mum, he’s damaged. Was he shot?”

“He’ll be fine,” she reassured him. “I’m sure there’s something on the Tardis to repair him. Isn’t that right, River?”

“Of course, he’s K9. The Doctor has a reserved area for him in the workshop. Anything he needs is there. The Tardis needs work on her outer shell too.” She put a hand up to the time rotor and simply stood like that for a beat. “But everyone else is alright, then?”

Martha’s eyes swept across them all and she nodded. “Although I wanted to ask you. Why did you have the Doctor’s internal scan on the monitor? It’s back up there now. Hold on.” She squinted. “Is that for--”

River nearly fell as she grabbed at it. She smacked a control and the screen went blank. “Just an old scan... after he died. I.. I needed to confirm he was dead.”

Amy frowned, so did everyone else because of what they knew, but they didn’t get a chance to say so. River leaned heavily on the console as she looked around at each of them. She suddenly stiff-armed her mother and turned to clutch the railing. Still, she stood straighter than she had as the shot Rory had given her took greater effect.

She walked down the steps. “We’re in the Vortex. The Tardis has moved the sickbay and workshop to right outside the control room.”

Her head turned heavily to her mother and then her father before she faced Jack at the doors. He scrambled to his feet.

Amy said, “River?”

She came up to Harkness. “You don’t have to worry about anyone. The Tardis is programmed to get all of you home. Everyone will land shortly after they left, except for Sarah Jane.”

Amy started coming after her. “River, what are you doing?”

“What needs to be done. Sarah Jane, it’ll be tomorrow when you return, so you’re nowhere around the Silents when you go back. They won’t stay with us already gone, but it’s an added layer of safety. I know I can count on you when it comes to protecting people’s lives.”

McShane frowned. “What’s all this about?”

“We were making a point before they showed up back there.” She returned to Jack. “I was telling you, you’re looking for the Doctor’s killer.”

Her hand shot out. She was still recovering, but surprise beat out Jack stopping her from getting his gun. She cocked it and put it to her chest. “That’s me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line about Dorothy "Ace" McShane being "fighter and not a screamer" is a quote from "Doctor Who: How Ace Set the Template for Modern Companions" by Andrew Younger. Written: 5 Jan, 2015
> 
> I originally thought the story would be done in 4 chapters, this is one was too long, so we have at least one more.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has stuck with the story!


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